Rivalries
by Gryffin Parker
Summary: What happenes when the star football player from WVU is friends (or more) with half of the VT team? A Twisted, Newsielicious take on that historic, newsmaking game. Future Slash.


Disclaimer & A/N:  I don't own Newsies, they belong to Disney.  I don't own the Mountaineers or the Hoakeys, they belong to West Virginia University and Virginia Tech.  The places in Morgantown are real.  The WVU and VT football players who aren't Newsies or are otherwise specified, are real people.  The coaches are real.  The game was real.  Sadly, Big Cat is also real.  Headline, Tina, and Jeopardy belong to me.  Joey is my friend, and he belongs to himself, though he doesn't know he's in this.  ^_^  I think that's everyone… if I've left anything out that belongs to someone else, I'm terribly sorry and please bring it to my attention.  Otherwise…  Um… so you know, most of this takes place on the campus of West Virginia University and in Morgantown.  It occurred to me that most people have no idea about this place at all, so here's the basics:  The PRT stands for Personal Rapid Transit… it's like a little monorail type thing that shuttles people around campus, only it's old, and clunky, and grossly dirty, and unreliable.  There are basically three parts of campus; downtown, Evansdale, and Health Sciences.  The Mountainlair is our Student Union.  Woodburn Hall is the oldest building on campus, and is quite lovely.  It is on some national registry as a historic landmark.

**_Rivalries_**

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**_Gryffin Parker_**

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_Prologue_

            There has always been a huge rivalry between West Virginia University and Virginia Tech, just as there has always been the Backyard Brawl between WVU and the University of Pittsburgh.  This year, 2003, VT has decided to leave our football conference.  The students looked forward to the Wed. night game.   Classes were canceled.  Tests were postponed.  The entire life of the campus changed, for one game.  One game that would change some people.  Maybe forever…  

            Jack sat in his history classroom, not really paying much attention to anything.  If he wanted to win, he had to focus.  And that meant focusing on the prize.  Yeah, that's what coach said.  Focusing on the prize...

            If Davey had been in that same classroom, he may have described the room as out of date, and technologically deprived, though it was a historic monument inside the 100 year old Woodburn Hall.  If Dutchy had been there he may have described it as warm, a beautiful reminder of the past.  Cozy even.  Beautifully old fashioned with a wonderful style of architecture built to last.  He would have commented on the two floor to ceiling windows, and the heavy wooden door that stood nearly 12 feet tall.  But neither of those two people was in the room.  Only Jack, a few boys he didn't know and didn't really care to, a stuffy graduate assistant who thought she knew everything and was determined to pass it on to her students, and a gaggle of giggling girls who absolutely refused to shut up about their meaningless, stupid, unimportant lives.

            Yeah.  WVU was great.  "Where Greatness is Learned and Couches are Burned!"

            'That should be the real slogan,' Jack thought as he stared at the first half of that sentence, which had been written in some fancy blue and gold scrawl across his planner.  The planner was one of many things he normally would have never been seen with.  There was an entire drawer full of things Jack would probably never use in his apartment.  

            There was only one reason he was there in the first place.  He came to WVU because they had given him a scholarship offer he couldn't refuse.  If he came and played football for the Mountaineers, he got his college education for free.  The fact that Jack had no inclination to pass said classes was a moot point.  The fact that his… for lack of a better word… father, was a traditionalist bastard had a lot to do with it.

            Father a lawyer, mother a socialite until she left with Jeremiah… Jack still said they left together when anyone asked.  He didn't like the looks and the shocked expressions people got when he told them that his mother had died of a broken heart after his older brother killed himself because of the life he was expected to live whether he liked it or not.  .  They lived in Virginia in a good neighborhood, with good kids in it.  His father worked in DC sometimes, at the Supreme Court.  To sum it up though, their family had always been your average white, protestant, middle class, conservative citizens of the good ole US of A

            Jack looked out the window onto the best looking lawn on campus.  There was a Sycamore tree in front of the building next door.  He liked it for some reason, though it was often occupied by some girl he didn't know.  He never bothered to ask her who she was.  It didn't matter.  She wasn't part of his plan.  She wasn't his prize… his Santa Fe.  

            The prize was very important now.  The Mountaineers had games coming up.  Big games with Pitt and Virginia Tech.  It was the last time that the 'Eers would ever play the Hoakies.  They had to win.  Especially after the loosing streak they had been on.  If VT was turning their back on the conference, they were going to have to know that the conference didn't need them either.  

            That's what Rodriguez had been slamming into the team's mind ever since the last home game.  It was hard though, to believe these other boys to be his biggest enemy in the world at the moment.  Jack had been expected to go to Virginia Tech, just like the rest of his friends.  Their high school team had won the state in their division for the past three years.  Jack had been the quarter back for all three of them.  But, WVU gave him a good offer, while VT looked him over and invited the rest of his team instead.  Fine.  Life would be like that then.  Jack went off to West Virginia all alone, and everyone he had ever known or really cared about went off to what was basically a whole other planet.  

            The big game was coming.  He had to keep his eyes on the prize…

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A/N:  Hope ya like the beginning… I don't know weather to finish it or not.  I really like the idea, because the game was one of the best experiences of my life.  It was completely awesome, and I wish that everyone gets to see a sight like that sometimes in their lives.  Tell me if ya like it and if I should continue.  Lata!!!


End file.
